


Not Too Distant Tomorrow

by TempestRising



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Best Friends Burton "Gus" Guster & Shawn Spencer, Burton "Gus" Guster Whump, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Shawn Spencer, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lassiter to the rescue, not against any of our boys, racial profiling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24306439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: "Look, if he's one of your CIs I suggest getting up here tonight if you can. California may be enlightened and all but my town can get real redneck if they hear about a black man raping one of their own."Carlton was already thinking of snappy insults to hurl at Shawn and pulled up short. "Black - Guster? You have Guster in custody?"Or: Lassie's used 3 am phone calls when someone's in trouble, he's just not used to that someone being Gus.
Relationships: Burton "Gus" Guster & Shawn Spencer
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111





	Not Too Distant Tomorrow

_"In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty."_

_**Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.** _

.***.

Carlton Lassiter reached for his phone and his gun simultaneously, body bypassing "tired as hell" and "it's three am damnit" in favor of cop instincts. Phone rings in the wee hours? He's already on his way out of bed.

"Lassiter," he barks into the phone, feeling for his shoes in the dark.

"Hi, um, Detective, this is Phil Reardon."

Lassiter took the phone from his ear and stared at the number - unknown, though his phone helpfully indicated the call was probably coming from somewhere in California. "Phil _who_? Do you know what time it is?"

"I'm with the Bakersfield PD. You visited, um, maybe eight months ago? To give us a seminar on water tracking?"

"This had better not be an early morning water question."

"No, sir. We've actually got a guy here, says he works for your Department? Kind of the sketchy type, though. Saw him around a crime scene early today and then tonight he's...well, let's just say the situation doesn't look good, the way we found him."

Oh, Lassiter knew where this was going. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "This guy, did he try to get into your investigation? Twitchy, thirty-ish, always has a wise crack comeback?"

"Um, maybe? Look, if he's one of your CIs I suggest getting up here tonight if you can. California may be enlightened and all but my town can get real redneck if they hear about a black man raping one of their own."

Carlton was already thinking of snapping insults to hurl at Shawn and pulled up short. "Black - Guster? You have Guster in custody?"

"A Burton Guster, yes sir."

"And he doesn't have a friend with him? Loud mouthed? White?"

"No, sir. Detective, it may be best for you to come up here yourself. This is off the books, but if my captain finds out SBPD has been sending CIs to snoop around our business..."

"He's not a CI, he's a consultant -"

Silence on the other end of the line told him that Phil's helpfulness had reached its end. He stared at his phone, debating...then scrolled for a number he called far too often. "Spencer?" He barked into the voicemail. "What the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

He threw on a suit, grabbed the extra wad of cash he kept for buying rounds after baseball games, hoping he wouldn't have to use it as bail money. He didn't call the Chief or Juliet, though that might change depending on the situation come eight am. He called Shawn over and over. Did the psychic not have enough work in a moderately sized city like Santa Barbara? He had to go up to the boonies and stick his nose in there?

Once in the car, he tried Spencer again. And this time got past voicemail -

-was he relieved to hear Spencer in his ear, talking too fast, throwing out names without context, protesting, lying- had he been imagining that the only situation that would see the duo of Spencer and Guster split involved one kidnapped or bloodied. Had he been _worrying_ about Shawn Spencer?

No. Never.

"Absolutely ridiculous!" Spencer was raging. He hadn't apologized for the late night wake up call. That wasn't his way. "Gus was trying to help this girl and gets arrested. What the hell? I was standing right there and I'm not arrested!"

Several suspicions were starting to fall into place for Lassiter, none of them promising. "No lying this time, Spencer. Your friend can be in serious trouble. What happened? Stick to the necessary details."

As he sped up the freeway, Spencer relayed the facts of the case. Chasing a lead that had started in Santa Barbara, the two had ended up in Bakersfield to interview the sister of a suspect. "He said she was his alibi, but when we were following up we started to see she was one of his victims. Serial rapist, lives with his younger sister - except he controlled her. Money, her job, who she was hanging out with - it all had to be approved by him first. And you should have seen her while we were interviewing her, Lassie. She was shaking."

"If this is an SBPD case and the suspect lived with this girl, why the hell are you in Bakersfield?"

"About two weeks ago the sister - her name is Anya - suddenly moved in with one of her friends. Supposedly, just a temporary vacation, but then the first assault in Santa Barbara happened..."

"Two weeks ago," Lassie surmised. "The prick couldn't get his victim at home anymore so he started in on strangers."

"Yeah, that's about what we thought, too."

"This sounds like a felony investigation. Why wasn't the PD notified of all this?"

"Up until six hours ago we thought the sister was just an alibi. We didn't interview her until late last night. We were going to head back to Santa Barbara first thing, but Anya asked if we could stay outside the house. She..." Shawn's voice turned self-recriminatory. Bitter. "She didn't feel safe alone."

"Even though her brother was still in Santa Barabara?" That didn't add up. Unless... "He didn't know where she was. And she was worried he'd followed you."

'And he did. Jesus, Lassie, we were right outside the house. Stake out, coffee, the whole nine. But then -"

"You fell asleep," Lassie guessed.

"Gus woke up first. He saw a light, called 9-1-1, went inside this house. I only woke up when I heard the sirens."

"Well, shit, Spencer."

"The suspect was gone, of course, and he'd been inside. He attacked this girl, again. He probably would have dragged her back to Santa Barbara, or killed her, or...I don't know. Sociopath stuff. When Gus got in the house the perp fled out the back door, and if I'd been with him I could have gone after the guy. Gus checked on the victim instead."

It was always a tough decision, in the moment, but - "Probably the right call."

"Sure, except poor Anya had been strangled. She was unconscious. Gus was checking her pulse. I ran in with the cops. Lassie, I saw him on the bed, trying to see if this girl was alive."

Lassie pushed the car even faster. He could see where this was going.

"Christ, Lassie, I thought they were going to shoot him. Honest to god, I thought my best friend was about to die. Because I ran into that room and I saw what the cops were seeing. An unconscious, pretty, young white girl who'd obviously just been hurt and a rumpled, out of breath black guy on the bed next to her."

Spencer was right to worry. People had been shot over less. Black men had been shot over much, much less.

"I guess we were lucky that the guy with the trigger finger had a TASER."

"Guster got Tased?'

"It was horrible." Spencer coughed but it didn't quite cover up how thick his voice got. "On TV it looks almost funny, you know? But you can see the electricity, and Gus screamed, and that just made this guy tase him again. And they got him on the ground and put him in handcuffs and - this is where I lost it, Lassie, if I hadn't lost it before. They had him in cuffs and started kicking him."

"While he was in custody?"

"While he was barely conscious. I mean, that Tasing took it out of him or something, cuz he was mostly gone. He was twitching, sure, but I think that was probably a reaction to the massive amounts of electricity that went through his system."

Lassie hated that he could so easily picture this scene; mostly because he'd seen it play out in stories across the country. Black man arrested entering his house, stopped on the street, beaten in handcuffs.

"Where were you?" Lassie barked, because he couldn't yell at the cops that had done this - yet - so yelling at Shawn was his next best option. "Why did I have to hear about this from a guy named Phil?"

"Where the hell did you think I was Lassie? I punched the cops who were kicking Gus. I was arrested, too. I made bail, like, two minutes before you called."

"So you're not with Guster?"

Shawn's voice was almost a moan. "They wouldn't let me see him."

Of course not. Lassiter was forming an opinion of the Bakersfield PD and it wasn't pretty. "Hang tight, Spencer. I mean it. Don't try to talk your way out of this one. Don't go into that station again without me. You make a wrong move here and we won't be able to help Gus."

"Yeah. Okay, yeah. Just...just hurry, okay?"

Lassiter pressed the gas pedal all the way down. Luckily there was no one on the road. He was almost thirty miles from Bakersfield.

He screeched into the parking lot twenty minutes later. Shawn was pacing outside the Bakersfield PD. In the uneven lights of the parking lot the sight of Spencer alive and whole sent a wave of relief through the detective, powerful as a punch in the gut. Not that he'd share that with anyone, of course. It was only when he got close that details started to take shape.

"Spencer!" Until he said the word Lassiter didn't know it would come out like that - a bark, a sigh of relief, an admonishment all at once. Spencer was just another consultant, after all. "Hey, hey," Lassiter jogged up to Spencer, grabbed his face even as he said, "Look at me." He tried to be gentle on the jaw because: "I hope you saw a doctor."

Shawn's face looked - well, he looked like he'd been knocked around. Swelling at the temple and left eye, one eyebrow split open, dried blood on a cheek, bruised mouth and jaw. Lassiter tried to move Spencer's head to check the side of the skill but he must have pressed too hard. Shawn winced. Pulled away.

"One of the guys who processed me had a First Aid kit."

"These injuries should be documented."

Shawn shrugged. "They took photos when they booked me."

"Evidence from a medical professional -"

"Lassie." Shawn held up his hand. "I hear you. I get it. I feel like shit. But we have to focus on Gus."

Lassiter touched his gun, like a talisman. "I can be mad about multiple things at once."

"Always knew you cared." Shawn winked, which looked painful and macabre with one eye swollen shut. "Save that anger for inside and get Gus out of there, okay?"

"You're not coming in?"

"Oh believe me, I've got a thing or two to say to those guys, but I'm going to let you lay the groundwork since I'm technically banned." Shawn jerked his head to the parking lot. Bakersfield PD operated out of a municipal complex that also included the post office, court house and hospital. "I'm going to check on Anya."

Shawn looked battered and worn, kept blinking away sleep and wincing at the pain of blinking, but still put his shoulders back in determination as he stared at the bright lights of the hospital.

Lassiter put a hand on his shoulder. "Spencer..." he didn't know what to say, so he said the nicest thing he could think of. "You would have been a damn fine cop."

Shawn stared at Lassiter. No, actually. He stared at Lassiter's gun. "You know, I spent a lot of years convinced I didn't deserve to be a cop, because cops were good guys, and I'm not a good guy. But then tonight - there's a serial rapist on the loose and I'm more scared of what the good guy cops are going to do to my best friend."

Lassiter squeezed Shawn's shoulder. There was so much in that statement. He started with the most important part. "You are a good guy."

For a moment Shawn's face broke and he looked like who he was: a vulnerable young man on the edge of tears. The next breath Shawn took shuddered on the way out. "Nah, Lassie. You're the good guy. Or you will be if you can get Gus out." Shawn slipped out of Lassie's grip and began the long walk away.

Lassiter watched him go, the lone figure stumbling in the moonlight. He wished things were different. He could make things different. He marched up the steps of the mostly-closed police department and shouldered his way in. Seemed like there were a couple things to set straight here.

.

It killed Shawn to walk away from the police department, but 1. Someone needed to check on Anya and the Bakersfield PD certainly didn't seem like they were going to, since they seemed to think they had the suspect in custody and 2. He may have exchanged some words with the officers on the case. And some fists. And some more words. And usually he wouldn't mind what people thought of him, but if his presence meant that Gus had to sit in handcuffs for longer than necessary...no. He'd let Lassiter bark up all the right trees before announcing his presence there again.

He took the length of the walk to figure out a way to get up to Anya's room, but the hospital staff at night was shoestring and sleepy. Shawn had always known that if you look like you belong, few people will question you. He walked in, delivered a story about his cousin Anya (making up a lie about his injuries on the fly, something about a bad reaction to jello) and was in her room in minutes.

As he'd suspected, there was no police presence. Just a girl in a hospital gown hooked up to an IV. She was arguing with a nurse about a rape kit. "I've done them before," Anya said. "They never lead anywhere."

Shawn knocked on the doorpost. The nurse snapped at him first. "Visiting hours are long over, young man."

"I get that, I know. I just - Anya, I just wanted to see if you were okay."

"I'm obviously not okay." Anya wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist. "I told you that I thought he'd follow you here. I told you, and you said that you'd keep me safe."

"I know, I'm sorry. I should never have said that."

"You said you worked for the police department."

"I do, in Santa Barbara. If we were there I would have made sure there were cops at your door all night, but I don't know the police department here, and they don't know me. I'm - Anya, I'm so, so sorry. We were there and we couldn't stop it."

Anya still had mascara on and it ran down her face. She was a very thin, very pretty, very scared girl. "You did stop it. Or, I mean. Your partner did."

"He what?" Shawn thought he'd known the chain of events. Gus went in at the end of things, perp ran off, Gus checks on unconscious Anya. "Gus stopped it?"

"I mean, I was basically unconscious. Nate always had a thing about choking me. But, yeah, Nate had my pants off and is saying all this stuff about how he's going to take me back to Santa Barbara with him and...you know. Just. Horrible things. But he never actually, uh, penetrated me because Gus ran into the room."

"And then what?" Shawn pressed.

Anya shrugged. Her shoulders were bare and goosepimpled in the cool sterile room. "I don't know. I guess I did pass out. But he didn't actually, you know. Do the deed. This time. Which is what I was trying to tell Nurse Ratchet before you walked in. Plus I have done a rape kit like five times and they never seem to go anywhere."

"This time it will," Shawn promised. "Look, Anya, I know you've had a terrible day, and I hate to ask you to do this, but right now Gus is with the police being charged with raping you."

Anya frowned. "You mean they don't have Nate?"

"No, they don't. They didn't look for him because they saw Gus with you and jumped to a bunch of conclusions."

"Mm-hmm." Anya's mouth settled into a straight line. "Like, it's easier to believe a black guy would do that rather than my fancy lawyer big brother?"

"Exactly." Shawn turned to the Nurse. Her nametag didn't say Ratchet but it did say Batchet and Shawn guessed the name change probably happened a lot in her profession. "Do you happen to have a tape recorder around? Or even a pen and paper?"

The nurse's face was like thunder and she was already protesting but Anya wobbled to her feet. This thin praying mantis of a girl, all long limbs and that awful bruise on her neck, struggling to her feet like a prize fighter after taking the punch. "You need a statement, right? Well, won't that be better in person? Let's do it. Let's go."

.

Lassiter took a moment before he burst into the Bakersfield PD to get a hold of his emotions. Listening to Spencer's descriptions over the phone was one thing - the man was dramatic and prone to exaggeration, no one could deny that - but something about seeing him in the very bruised flesh, made a strange sweeping protective instinct rattle under his rib cage. Shawn's obvious panic had crept under his thick detective skin and transformed into very real and powerful anger.

He hoped that his decision to handle this solo wouldn't come back to haunt him. At the very least, Guster probably needed a halfway competent lawyer. He still wanted a speedy end to this long, long night, so that hopefully by dawn, when decent people rose at decent hours, he would already be with the duo on the way back to the more civilized shores of Santa Barbara.

But should he have called the Chief and had the weight of her anger and title behind him? Or Juliet, to have access to her calm efficiency? He assured himself that if the matter didn't see a swift resolution he would make those calls. And he would crush this backwards boondocks outpost.

"Detective Carlton Lassiter," he barked at the first person he saw, a uniformed officer doing a crossword puzzle by a telephone. "I'm looking for Officer Reardon."

That tone always brought the same results. A slightly unhinged jaw, a finger pointing down a hallway before words even spilled out. "Um, he's making a Hot Pocket I think but - sir, what is this about? Sir? I should be signing you in?"

Lassiter flashed his badge and didn't break stride. Luckily the layout of most departments was cookie cutter. He found Phil Reardon in a small kitchen just off the bull-pen, juggling what looked like a very hot Hot Pocket between the tips of his fingers. If not for the phone call Lassiter never would have remembered Reardon: an unremarkable man; thinnish, slightly balding, the look of a man who had been a boy who played sports. White, of course.

"Oh! Detective! You - um, you actually came. That's...good. It's...actually not a great time right now?"

"Cut the crap, Reardon, we both know that Bakersfield dropped the ball on this investigation from the jump. You have a girl filing multiple restraining orders and you don't send out some black and whites on patrol?"

He was just guessing on the restraining orders, but Reardon's face told him he wasn't far off the mark. It had been bothering him since the phone call: Spencer was impulsive but not stupid. He wouldn't have gotten involved in an investigation in another precinct without at least giving the local force a head's up.

"I know what I saw, Detective. Look, I gave you a call because I respect you, but your presence here is not going to impede my investigation, you hear?"

"Oh, it won't. Because I'll be leaving, and I'll take my consultants with me." Lassiter tried to keep his voice firm and level. "They will be available for questioning, if you guys ever get your heads out of your asses long enough to make some inquiries into what happened tonight."

"Now, Detective..."

"Let me see Guster," Lassiter broke in. "I already saw what happened to one of my men outside. I suspect you know you have a lawsuit on your hands, Reardon. You didn't call me out of the goodness of your heart, you called me because your department ignored a girl in danger, ignored the investigation into why she was in danger, and when you finally did take action it was against the wrong person. So let me clean this up as swiftly as possible before the news breaks in all the wrong ways in the morning papers."

"Is that a threat?" Reardon demanded, his voice rising.

Two other officers appeared in the doorway and Lassiter spared them the barest of glances. Both had what looked like new grazes on their faces and, more worryingly, tape on their knuckles.

"It's a promise. Now. My man."

They'd put Guster into an interrogation room. Hands cuffed behind him. "He was struggling when we got him in here," Reardon shrugged. Lassiter was liking the man less and less. "Calmed down a bit since then. Hasn't said a word beyond wanting a lawyer, but we figure we've got an hour or so before we need to go waking decent people up in the middle of the night."

Until Lassiter saw Guster, he'd been willing to let his whole night slide. Whatever mismanagement was happening in this precinct would be swept under the rug in exchange for Spencer and Guster back in Santa Barbara by dawn. Those kind of just-between-us deals happened fairly frequently when departments rubbed against each other during investigations.

But then he actually saw Guster. And he decided to burn this whole place to the goddamn ground.

He was in a jumpsuit ( _"Pissed his pants," one of the officers said. "Happens with the Tase nine times out of ten." He did not sound apologetic about his use of force _) and looked...well, Lassiter's first and worst instinct said that he looked like a punk. Without his usual pressed shirt and dress shoes, face mottled from a beating, dressed in orange and handcuffs, Guster looked both younger and meaner than he was. It was the problem of optics. If this picture ran in a paper alongside a headline of rape, that would be Guster's legacy. Forever. Didn't matter that he hadn't even been accused of the crime, a whole town would see him and find him wanting. They wouldn't know about Gus's love of music, or aptitude at his job, or the fact that Gus would lie down in traffic to protect his best friend. In this room he was reduced to his base parts: a black man.__

__Gus frowned in the direction of the noise. He'd been dozing upright in his chair but startled in the direction of the door. Both his eyes were swollen. There was the impression of a bootprint across one cheek. "Lassie?" Gus croaked, clearing his throat and trying unsuccessfully to sit upright. "I mean, hello Detective Lassiter."_ _

__Gus's pupils under his swollen eyelids jumped to the men crowding in the door behind Lassiter. He didn't have to turn around to know that several of them had their hands resting on their guns. As if this situation was still a threat._ _

__Oh yeah, Lassiter decided. This whole department was going down. He'd see to it personally._ _

__"Usually I'm springing Spencer out of these situations," Lassiter said, keeping his voice deliberately light. He didn't like how formal Guster's tone had gotten, as if they hadn't been working together for the past three years, as if Guster was remembering a childhood of parents reminding him, warning him, begging him to be polite to police officers, to be wary of them. "Now I have to worry about you, too?"_ _

__"You saw Shawn? Is he okay? He - I know he tried to stop -" Gus glanced at the door again. "Last I saw him he...wasn't okay."_ _

__"He's fine. Bumps and bruises. He's checking on that girl that you saved." This last part was more for the other officers. "Now, how about we get you out of this joint?"_ _

__"I don't think that's happening," Guster said, squirming in the seat just a little and making the cuffs rattle._ _

__His speech was slurred slightly by a swollen lip. One whole cheek was definitely blowing up in a painful-looking balloon. "Has anyone checked out your injuries?"_ _

__Gus kept his eyes on the door and closed his mouth. He half shrugged, half shook his head. "Someone helped me change. My clothes were evidence or something, I guess."_ _

__"Can I get a First Aid kit? And some water?" Lassiter called over his shoulder. "And unless you guys have something to add close the door."_ _

__Lassiter settled into the chair across from Gus and pretended that the way the younger man stiffened didn't hurt him somewhere in his gut. He moved his chair around the table (breaking about nine types of protocol and not caring a whit) and when he was close enough to put a hand on Gus's arm, one of the arms twisted behind his back, one of the only places that looked unbruised. Comfort didn't come easily to Lassiter - that's why he had a partner like Juliet - but he needed to say something, or Gus seemed in danger of vibrating apart. "Hey. You're going to be okay."_ _

__"I hate this," Gus admitted, and his voice was a croak. "I - we were just helping Anya. I thought I was going to die." Gus twisted to wipe his eyes against the collar of the jumpsuit. Lassiter was going to ask for keys for these handcuffs next. His heart couldn't stand much more of this. He kept calm by imagining the piles of lawsuits he could bring against the department. "I hate being scared."_ _

__Every word was a blow. Lassiter rubbed Gus's arm and didn't say anything until he got the First Aid kit, barking at the officer to bring him the handcuff keys next._ _

__He started cleaning up Gus without the keys. "There's no case against you. In fact, there's quite a good case against them."_ _

__"I was in Anya's room. She - it was a bad looking situation, I'll admit it."_ _

__"Spencer's working on that part. When the police came into the room, did you make any moves of aggression towards them?"_ _

__"What? No!" Gus flinched as Lassiter cleaned the biggest cut on his temple. Then he leaned into the touch, just a little, eyes fluttering closed. Lassiter made several vows at once. He couldn't have these men in these situations being this vulnerable. Self defense classes first. Not that they would have helped here._ _

__"Did they ask you any questions, and did you answer?"_ _

__"Not really? I just turned around, and I saw the officers and I saw Shawn, and then they shot me. Tased me. Whatever. It - it really hurt."_ _

__"Did they give any warnings?"_ _

__"Maybe? Shawn would know. He's...you know. He's got that photographic memory."_ _

__Lassiter may have known that but had never acknowledged that he knew that, but of course Spencer didn't work on "psychic vibrations" alone. He had an uncanny knack for seeing what was wrong in a situation. A photographic memory would help with that._ _

__"After they Tased you the first time, did you make any moves to resist?" He gently lifted Guster's eyelid to check the pupils. Uneven in dilation. Okay. Okay._ _

__Gus avoided his gaze. "I don't know. I guess I kind of curled up when they got near me. Does that count?"_ _

__Probably not, but Lassiter could see the other side of this situation, too. A suspect hovering over a hurt girl. A sudden move, even if he was already on the floor. He felt like he was embodying two personas at once: the lead detective and the outraged ( _friend? colleague? peer?_ ) friend. And right now the outrage was winning. It wasn't just the fact that Bakersfield PD had obviously ignored some warnings from this girl, or the heads up from Spencer, or the evidence in the room, it was all that taken as one that bothered Lassiter the most._ _

__"Hey, Lassie," Gus muttered, nostrils flaring as Lassiter wrestled with the wrapping on a small Band-Aid, "I'm getting out of here tonight. Right?"_ _

__Instead of answering, Lassiter smoothed the Band-Aid over a laceration on Gus's cheek, a gash that probably needed stitches that would have to wait. And his silence was probably the same as an answer._ _

__"Oh," Gus said._ _

__"Let me talk to these guys."_ _

__"Okay."_ _

__There was something both sad and endearing about the way that Gus submitted himself to Lassie's ministrations. When Lassie reached the bottom of Gus's neck he paused, sure from the way some of the bruises curved that there'd be more to see further down but unsure if he knew Gus well enough to get him to disrobe in front of him and what was surely a plurality of other officers behind the mirror._ _

__What was heartening was the way that Gus relaxed, bit by bit, as his wounds were cleaned. It was obvious that he'd been sitting in pain for quite a while and now that it was abating his eyes kept slipping closed. Adrenaline crash. Once, his head dipped forward and he jerked back awake. "Shawn," he said when he woke up. "You saw Shawn?"_ _

__A pang in Lassiter's chest. He had never had a friendship like that. He had never had a brother. Partners throughout his career in the force were one thing but the automatic way Gus and Shawn sought each other out in any situation was a different level of loyalty. One that Lassie had always suspected, privately, Shawn did not deserve. "I saw him," Lassiter repeated. "He's fine."_ _

__Gus grunted in a way that said that he suspected otherwise._ _

__And, as always, Gus's instincts were spot-on. A commotion outside the door told Lassie that the cavalry, such as it was, had arrived._ _

__._ _

__The following forty minutes were filled with bluster and performance from Shawn, a lot of glaring and swagger from Lassiter, pleading and exasperation from Anya who pulled the cat out of the bag when she was able to produce pictures of her brother the actual rapist, provide a name that matched several arrest records on the California system, and sign statements that Shawn and Gus had been trying to help her when the police force had failed._ _

__An officer had pulled Gus out of the interrogation room but he was still in handcuffs in the bull pen._ _

__In between threatening the department with lawsuits, Lassiter kept an eye on Shawn, who never stopped staring at Gus._ _

__By six am the sun was a smudge on the horizon. Lassiter held the door open as the three civilians tripped out of the Bakersfield PD. In the parking lot, Shawn and Gus hugged long and hard, speaking quietly into each other's shoulders. Then they separated, and Gus nodded, and Gus got into Lassiter's cruiser while Shawn and Anya got into the blueberry for the long, long drive home._ _

__._ _

__Lassiter pointed the car in the direction of the hospital. He called the Chief's number at the department so she would meet him there when she got in at a decent hour. They still had a serial rapist to catch, which meant, probably, Feds and paperwork but also sent a thrum of anticipation through Lassiter's veins. It was like a puzzle that had already been mostly completed, and he got to put in the last satisfying piece._ _

__Gus had been dozing against the window in the passenger seat but woke up when they left the highway. He cleared his throat when he realized what way they were heading. "I, um, I really don't need the hospital, Lassie."_ _

__"I disagree."_ _

__"The thing is," Gus said, his voice climbing. "My mom's kind of active in volunteering, you know? And she definitely knows a bunch of people at the hospital. She'll know if I get looked at."_ _

__"Wouldn't she know anyway?"_ _

__"Why would she? I wouldn't tell her."_ _

__Lassie had spent the evening...well, pretty pissed off, but he'd spent another part of the evening gaining a measure of respect for Guster and Spencer. Lassiter's presence had probably helped speed things along but he had little doubt that Spencer would have gotten Guster out of custody one way or another by dawn. So why did this new piece of information surprise him?_ _

__"I kind of promised my parents I'd stop working with Shawn. I promised a bunch of times. They...they definitely respect police officers, you know? Don't get me wrong. But they don't like that I spend so much time around crimes."_ _

__In so many ways this evening had ended well, mostly because Gus hadn't ended up dead or stuck in a jail cell. But Lassiter suddenly recognized that that was a very low bar for a good outcome._ _

__He drove Gus to the hospital anyway._ _

__._ _

__A month later, would you say anything had been learned from that night?_ _

__Anya's brother was caught and charged and awaiting sentencing, and she had found a home in a residential program for women who'd experienced sexual abuse, a program that helped them find jobs and lives and educations away from their abusers (that program was Juliet's idea. She'd been a little miffed at being left out that night but had thrown herself into the case like the professional she was)._ _

__Gus did indeed go to the hospital, and his parents did find out, and his mother showed up to the hospital before even the Chief got there. She had sat, stone-faced, in a chair in the room where Gus was cleaned and released. She ushered Gus into the family car and drove him to the family home and forbade even Shawn entry for a full two days._ _

__Which gave Spencer enough time to wreak his brand of chaos. Shaking off his own parent's worry ("it's just bruises, Dad! I thought you've been waiting for someone to knock some sense into me!") he began filing citizen's complaints against the Bakersfield PD at a fairly alarming rate. He requested information under public access laws and looked for patterns of racial profiling and tracked down old contacts in the Santa Barbara newspaper and gave them everything he'd learned and basically began a full-on blitz against the department._ _

__Lassiter brought a different clap of justice, not just for Bakersfield. A twelve-month seminar series on race relations for both Bakersfield and the SBPD. He usually hated those things but he sat in the front row this time. The first speaker was a black doctor who talked about inequitable treatment of wounds, pain, even cancer in the black community. Lassiter talked to the doctor after the seminar about making these conversations available to the public._ _

__All the officers involved in Guster's "arrest" that night were still on the beat. Only one, the one with the taser, had been disciplined at all. Whenever Lassiter thought about the officer's sentence he still boiled over with rage that made him vow to work better, smarter, harder. That officer's sentence? For tasing an innocent man, for beating him while in custody? That officer had gotten a week's suspension._ _

__Paid._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to shake off my rusty writing skills and we've been watching a lot of Psych in quarantine. Hope everyone's staying safe and sane.


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